Antonio Canova

marble, 66 x 36 x 31 cm

Signed on the right side: «A. CANOVA. SCOLPÌ» on the front  «A DOM:CO CIMAROSA/ NAPOLETANO/ ESIMIO MAESTRO DI MUSICA/ NATO M.DCC.XLVIIII MORTO M.DCCC.I/ ERCOLE CARD: CONSALVI/ M.DCCCXVI».

This marble herm is the second version of a famous bust of Domenico Cimarosa now in the Protomoteca Capitolina, but originally displayed in the Pantheon. Formerly owned by the celebrated Cardinal Consalvi, a friend and admirer of the sitter, it turns to a Classical model to portray the Neapolitan composer. It is considered to be one of the masterpieces of Canova’s portraiture, “modelled with softly sloping surfaces” where “the weighty material is transfigured by the force of art and where the marble, swollen with hidden resonance, appears light, transparent, suspended like the sitter’s distant gaze on the verge of an enchanting melody”, as Valentino Martinelli put in, writing in 1955.